events by no means conspired to shake the keeper’s evil determination. lulled to fancied security and a belief that his indifference indicated a change of mind toward her, jane continued her attention to dick; and he abstained from upbraiding her, for he took this display to be love, and felt more than ever assured that, maybridge once out of the way, the girl would waken as from a dream to the reality of his regard and worship. her conduct, indeed, obscured his own affection, but he came of a class that takes life and its tender relations callously. the only ardent and worthy emotion that had ever made his heart throb quicker was this girl. his love was still alive, nor could anger kill it while he continued blind to the truth that she no longer cared for him.
a fortnight after his visit to the case house, dick descended by night from his den upon the high moor, and the dim flicker of a flame he had long desired to see strung his nerves to steel. for fulfilment of his plan it was necessary that he should come pat on the interval between the arrival of anthony maybridge at this tryst and jane’s p. 248subsequent approach. twice he had been too late; to-night he arrived in time, and his opportunity waited for him. maybridge was alone. the light burnt in silence. then came a solitary footfall on the hollow floor above the gunpowder.
daccombe had calculated every action that would combine to complete and perfect the deed now before him. nor had he disdained to consider the result. no witness could rise up against him; his enemy would be blown out of physical existence, and his own subsequent declaration that some tons of blasting powder remained forgotten in the old magazine must serve to explain the rest. a spark from anthony’s pipe would be a satisfactory solution.
the man set about his murder swiftly and stealthily. he had already driven a heavy staple into the door of the case house, and now, without a sound, he fastened his victim firmly in, using some lengths of brass rabbit wire for the purpose. then he crept down below the level of the building, scratched away the turf and fern and moved the loosened bricks. he felt the powder dry under his hand, brought a large lump of rotten wood from his breast pocket, where he had long carried it, and struck a match. soon the touchwood glowed, and he set it down, leapt from his work and hastened away along the path by which jane must presently p. 249approach. thus he designed to intercept her progress, and, upon some pretence or excuse, draw her from the zone of danger. as to that last point, however, he was doubtful. the amount of the powder he could not accurately tell, and the extent of the explosion remained to be seen. richard calculated that three minutes, if not a longer period, must elapse before fire would gnaw up the dead wood and reach the powder; and now, as he moved hastily away, the seconds lengthened into minutes, and the minutes most horribly dragged. an infinite abyss of time widened out between the deed and its effect. he lived his life again; and still he peered through the darkness with his eyes, and strained upon the silence with his ears, that he might not let jane stanberry pass him and go ignorantly to destruction.
he was a quarter of a mile from the case house, when it seemed as though the heavens were opened and doomsday suddenly loosed upon the world. an awful and withering explosion swept the glen like a storm. first there leapt aloft a pillar of pale fire, that rose and spread as the eruption of a volcano spreads. the terrific glare painted long miles of the moor, and like the hand of lightning, revealed the shaggy crowns of the tors on many a distant hill; while, long before its livid sheaf of flame had sunk, came such a crash and bellow of p. 250sound as might burst from the upheaval of a world in earthquake. upon this appalling detonation a wave of air swept in sudden tempest. richard was blown off his feet and dashed to the ground; and as he fell, the hills echoed back the explosion in crashing reverberations that rolled out of the darkness, rose and fell, and rose again, until, after a hundred repetitions flung hither and thither over the peaks of the land, they sank through a growling diminuendo into silence. and the silence was terrific by contrast with the awful clamour it succeeded, even as the darkness was intense that followed upon such an unwonted and far-flung glare of light.
richard daccombe got upon his feet, and the tinkle of broken glass was in his ears, with the murmur of affrighted voices; for the concussion had shattered nearly every pane at cross ways, and mightily alarmed the dwellers there.
when he reached home the young keeper found his parents already out-of-doors, with the whole household assembled about them.
mary daccombe praised god at sight of her son uninjured.
“’tis the end of the world, by the sound of it,” she said. “where be davey to?”
his father questioned richard, and the man declared his ignorance of all particulars.
p. 251“an explosion at the old powder-mills, or else a bolt from heaven,” he answered. “i must have passed by the very place, i reckon, not five minutes before the upstore.”
“a thunder-planet, for sartain,” declared an ancient soul, whose few teeth chattered between his words. “i can call home when a com-com-comet was reigning fifty years an’ more agone, an’ ’twas just such open weather as us have had o’ late.”
mr. daccombe felt anxious for his stock in certain byres and cow-houses that lay to the west of the powder-mills. but first he held up a lantern and counted the company.
“be us all here?” he asked.
“davey’s out somewheers,” answered his wife; “ess, an’ jane stanberry be—” she broke off, and looked at the farmer.
“down-long, i s’pose,” he said carelessly; then he turned to richard. “us can’t blink these meetings between ’em, dick. best man wins where a maid’s the prize; or which she thinks be the best. awnly god send her ban’t in the powder-mills to-night.”
“’tis most certain she be,” answered mary daccombe. “her didn’t know as the young man—mr. maybridge—was called off sudden to moreton to serve ’pon a committee for the hunt dinner next month. a chap rode out, and he saddled his p. 252mare hisself and galloped off we him directly after he’d ate his meat.”
“jane didn’t know?” asked richard.
“no, she went out counting to find him, i’m afraid.”
“an’ he’m at moreton?”
the man asked in a voice so strange that none failed to note it, even in this dark moment of fear and turmoil.
“her went to wait for him usual place, no doubt,” said jonathan daccombe. “us had better come an’ look around for her, an’ davey too—not to name the things in the long byre by the wood.”
a hideous cry suddenly cut jonathan short, for a storm had swept the sinner’s brain upon these words. he saw what he had done, and the shock overset the balance of his mind.
“come!” he cried; “i’ve killed her, i’ve ended her days in a scatter of blood and flesh! nought to show for the butivul round body of her now. but her shall have christian burial, if ’tis awnly a hair of her head left to put in the churchyard; an’ i’ll mourn for her on my knees, afore they string me up!”
“god’s goodness! what gabble be this?” asked his father.
“and maybridge still alive, wi’ no smell of fire about him. i’ll—i’ll—”
p. 253he broke off and gazed round him wildly.
“upon the moreton road as he comes home-along!” he said. then the wretch turned to hurry away. at the first step, however, he stopped and stood as still as a statue, for he had heard what was hidden from the ears of the rest. then they too caught the sound of footsteps and a murmuring in the night. richard remained without moving, and his eyes glared into the dark, and his jaw had fallen. then, taking shape and coming slowly into the radius of lantern light, there moved a woman and a boy.
jane stanberry approached, holding davey by the hand; and at sight of her richard daccombe screamed out his shattered senses, and fled as one possessed of an evil spirit. in vain they made search for him by night and day, and it was not until more than eight-and-forty hours had passed that they found him wandering in the great central loneliness insane. there they ministered to him, and brought him home; and time so dealt with him that he sank into a harmless and haunted idiocy—a horror for his father, a knife in his mother’s heart.
now it happened that richard’s brother, upon the keeper’s departure from the case house on a day already noted, had descended from his pine tree, made close investigation of the elder’s deed, and guessed that such preparations were directed p. 254against one man. from that day until the time of the catastrophe, david kept silent watch upon all occasions when jane and anthony maybridge met there. hidden within a dry drain some ten yards distant, he had played sentinel until the night of richard’s revenge. then he had crept from his cover the moment the other’s back was turned, reached the smouldering touchwood, and with amazing courage extinguished it. afterward, releasing the girl as quickly as possible, and bidding her run for her life to the shelter of a grinding mill two hundred yards distant, he had once more set the rotten wood on fire and hastened after jane.
she, mystified and indignant, was also conscious that the boy must be obeyed, and so fled as he ordered her. yet both would have perished but for their protection behind the stout ruin of the grinding mill. and now, the fear of death upon their faces, they hurried trembling home, and nemesis came with them.
* * *
to-day a black-bearded man, with brown eyes and a mouth always open, shambles about the blasted heart of the old powder-mill. he babbles to himself with many a frown and pregnant nod and look askance; sometimes he watches the trout in the river; sometimes he plucks feverishly at the blossoms of the broom and spearwort and other p. 255yellow flowers. these he stamps underfoot as one stamps fire. davey is his brother’s keeper, and shall be seen always at hand. at his word richard daccombe obeys like a dog—shrinks with fear if the boy is angry, fawns and laughs when the boy is kind.
p. 257joseph
p. 259“i do love they stuckit plants,” said mr. joseph hannaford.
he waved his hands toward some lettuces of a fat figure and plump proportions.
“doan’t want no work—that’s why,” answered matthew smallridge. “the straggly sort be better, but they axes for tying up an’ trouble.”
“ezacally so. an’ a man as goes out of his way to sow trouble be a fule, matthew,” retorted joseph, triumphantly.
the gardeners met every day, and every day differed on affairs of horticulture and life. joseph was stout, with a red face set in a white frill of whisker. he had a rabbit mouth, a bald brow and a constitutional capacity for idleness. he talked much. he had a fine theory that we do not leave enough to nature in matters of the garden.
mr. smallridge, the squire’s gardener, enjoyed a different habit of body and mind. he was a man who lived for work and loved it; he read the journals proper to his business; he kept his subordinates to their labours from morn till eve; and idleness he loathed as the worst sin to be laid at p. 260the door of any agriculturist, great or small. mr. hannaford alleged that the literature of his business was desirable for beginners, but he declared it to be unnecessary in his case. if asked concerning his authorities, he would tap his forehead and say, “books? i don’t want no books. ’tis all here.” no man possessed sure proofs that he could either read or write.
these two were ancient men, yet not old for dartmoor, where those of hardy stock, who have weathered the ordeal of infancy, usually advance far into the vale of years before their taking off. joseph attributed his excellent health and spirits to a proper sense of what was due to himself in the matter of rest; while matthew, on the other hand, assigned his physical and mental prosperity to hard work and temperance. now the men stood together in joseph’s little garden and discussed general questions.
“if us was all your way of thinking, theer’d be no progress, an’ never a new pea growed an’ never a new potato taken to a show,” said mr. smallridge.
“i hate shows,” answered joseph. “’tis flying in the face of nature an’ god almighty, all this struggling for size. if he’d a’ meant to grow twenty peas in a pod, an’ all so big as cherries, he’d have done it wi’ a turn o’ the wrist. he didn’t do p. 261it, an’ for us worms to try an’ go awver the lord in the matter of garden-stuff be so bad as bad can be. ’twas touching that very thing i fell out with the reverend truman. ‘i be gwaine to show grapes, joseph,’ he said to me last year; an’ i nodded an’ said, ‘ess, sir,’ an’ went my even way. us didn’t show. then ’twas chrysanths. weern’t satisfied wi’ a nice, small, stuggy bloom, as nature meant, but must be pinching, an’ potting, an’ messing with soot an’ dirt, an’ watering twice a day—ten months’ toil for two months’ pleasure. then what? a gert, ramshackly, auld blossom, like a mop dipped in a pail o’ paint. however, i let his reverence do the work, an’ what credit was about i got myself. not that i wanted it.”
“as true a christian your master was as ever walked in a garden, however,” declared mr. smallridge. “i hope the new parson will prove so gude.”
“i be gwaine to see him this very day,” answered joseph. “’tis my hope he’ll take me on to the vicarage, for the place wouldn’t be the place without me up theer. i knaw every blade of grass an’ gooseberry bush in it—a very butivul kitchen-garden ’tis too.”
“an’ well out of sight of the sitting-room windows,” said matthew smallridge, grimly.
“as a kitchen-garden should be,” assented joseph. “gude times they was,” he continued, “an’ p. 262i only hopes the reverend truman have got such a fine garden an’ such a’ honest man in it as he had here.”
“but no li’l maid to go round with him, poor soul!”
“a bright child his darter was. impatient also—like youth ever is. her’d bring me plants to coddle, an’ expect me to waste my precious time looking after her rubbish. then a thing would be struck for death, along of want of water or what not, an’ her’d come to me wi’ her li’l face all clouded. ‘can’t ’e make it well again, joseph?’ her’d say; an’ i’d say, ‘no, missy; ’tis all up wi’ thicky geranium,’ or whatever ’twas. ‘’tis gwaine home.’ an’ her’d stamp her li’l foot so savage an’ ferocious, an’ say, `but it mustn’t go home! i don’t want it to go home! ’tis your business not to let it go home!’ poor little maiden!”
“an’ now she’ve gone home herself.”
“ess. she didn’t mean to be rude to an auld man. but of course i couldn’t be bothered with such trash. as to watering, i always leave it to nature. who be us that we should knaw better what things want than her do?”
“nature caan’t water green stuff onder glass, can her?”
“no; then why put it onder glass? all this here talk ’bout glass houses is vanity an’ flying in the face of providence. if ’twas meant that grapes p. 263an’ tree-ferns an’ ’zaleas an’ hothouse stuff was to flourish in england, they’d be here doing of it on every mountain-side. us takes too much ’pon ourselves. same with prayers. what be prayer most times but trying to get the a’mighty round to our way of thinking? we’m too busy,—most of us,—an’ that’s the truth.”
“jimmery!” exclaimed matthew. “i never did in all my born days hear tell of the like o’ you! you won’t work an’ you won’t pray—’tis terrible. all the same, if you don’t get the vicarage again, an’ come as under-gardener to the squire, as he’ve offered you, i tell you frankly, friends though we be, that you’ll have to work harder than you’ve worked for twenty years.”
“i know it very well, matt,” said mr. hannaford. “your way an’ mine be different, root an’ branch; an’ i pray god as i may not have to come under you, for i’d hate it properly, an’ that’s the truth. an’ i do work, an’ i do pray likewise; an’ i’d back my chance of going up aloft with my last shirt, if there was any to take the bet. you’m too self-righteous along of your high wages—”
“joseph! ’tis time you put on your black,” cried a voice from the cottage door.
here grew a feeble honeysuckle that had been nailed up four years before, and still struggled gamely with a north aspect and neglect.
p. 264on the other side of the doorway was a thrush in a cage. it appeared too spiritless even to mount its wooden perch, but sat on the floor of its prison and listlessly pecked at nothing.
mrs. hannaford had a thin, flat figure, a hard mouth, keen eyes and a face like a fowl. tremendous force of character marked her pale visage. the grey curls that hung there on each side of her narrow forehead looked like steel shavings.
“dress,” she said, “an’ be quick about it. ah, mr. smallridge—helping joseph to waste his time.”
“not me, ma’am; that’s about the only job he doesn’t want helping with. i’ve just been telling your man that if mr. budd to the vicarage doan’t need him, an’ he takes squire’s offer an’ comes to me, theer must be more work an’ less talk.”
“the new parson will want him,” said mrs. hannaford, decidedly. “who should stick a spade in that earth after twenty-five years if not joseph?”
“very plants would cry out if anybody else was put awver them,” said mr. hannaford, sentimentally.
“cry out for joy, i reckon,” murmured matthew, but not loud enough for his friend’s wife to overhear him. “theer’s wan thing you should know,” he continued, changing the subject. “parson budd be a tremendous church of englander, so i heard squire say. he’ve got his knife into all chapel-people an’ free-thinkers an’ such like.”
p. 265“’tis a free country,” answered mrs. hannaford, and her curls almost appeared to clatter as she shook her head. “he’d better mind his awn business, which be faith, hope an’ charity, an’ not poke his nose into other people’s prayers!”
“as for religion,” declared joseph, “the little as i’ve got time for in that line be done along with my missis an’ the plymouth brethren. but theer ban’t no smallness in me. room in the lard’s mansions for all of us; an’ if the roads be narrer, theer’s plenty of ’em, an’ plenty of gates to the golden jerusalem.”
mrs. hannaford frowned.
“you’m too free with your views, joseph hannaford,” she said. “you’d best call to mind what pastor said to chapel last sunday, ’bout the camel an’ the needle’s eye. many be called an’ few chosen, so theer’s an end of it. the brethren’s way be the right way an’ the strait way; an’ ban’t your business to be breaking gates into heaven for them as do wrong, an’ think wrong, an’ haven’t a spark of charity, an’ be busy about the dowl’s work in every other cottage in this village. i know what church folks be—nobody better.”
mr. smallridge, himself of the established religion, retreated before this outburst.
“hell of a female that,” he said to himself. “how the man can keep heart after all these years p. 266be a mystery. yet she sits light upon him, seemingly.”
then joseph, with some groans and grumbles, went to decorate himself, that the new incumbent might smile upon him and reappoint him to the care of the vicarage garden. he shaved very carefully, washed, showed mrs. hannaford his finger-nails,—a matter he usually shirked,—donned his best attire, and finally started beside his wife to appear before mr. budd.
“’tis a grievous choice,” he said; “an’ if the man doan’t take me on, i’ll have to go to the hall under smallridge—a very ill-convenient thing to think upon.”
“’tis a matter of form, but better the hall than any paltering with what’s right; an’ better be under smallridge than against your conscience.”
“my conscience is very well, an’ always have been since i was a bwoy.”
“you’m a deal tu easy, however,” she answered sternly—“a deal tu easy, an’ you’ll very likely find that out when ’tis tu late. your conscience be like proud-flesh, i reckon: don’t hurt ’e ’cause ’tis past feeling. i wish it pricked you so often as your rheumatics do. ’twould be a sign of grace.”
“you’m like poor parson truman’s li’l maiden wi’ her flowers, you be,” he retorted. “her was always dragging up the things to see how they p. 267prospered, an’ you’m always dragging up your conscience by the roots, same way, to see how ’tis faring. i let mine bide.”
“you can’t,” snapped back mrs. hannaford. “conscience ban’t built to bide—no more’n a growing pear upon a tree. it goes from gude to better, or else from bad to worse. you ban’t so righteous-minded as i could wish ’e, joseph; but i’ve done a deal for you since we’ve been man an’ wife; an’ if you’m spared ten year more, i lay i’ll have your conscience to work so hard as a man saving his own hay.”
“pity you can’t live an’ let live, my dear,” answered the gardener. “even the weeds was made by god for his own ends, as i always told truman. you’m a very religious woman; an’ nobody knaws it better’n you; all the same, if folks’ consciences ax for such a power of watching, ’tis enough for every human to look after theer own, surely.”
“why for don’t you do it, then?”
“here’s the vicarage,” he answered. “us better not go in warm—might be against us. i’ll dust my boots, an’ you’d best to cool your face, for ’tis glistening like the moon in the sky.”
presently they stood before a busy newcomer. he proved a young, plump, and pleasant man—a man fond of fishing and fox-hunting, a man of rotund voice and rotund figure. joseph’s heart p. 268grew hopeful. here was no dragon of horticulture, but one, like himself, who would live and let live, and doubtless leave the garden in the hands of its professional attendant.
“your servant, sir,” he said. “i hope your honour be very well an’ likes the church an’ the hunt—also the garden.”
“mr. joseph hannaford, i suppose, and this is mrs. hannaford—good parishioners both, of course? sit down, mrs. hannaford, please.”
“’tis in a nutshell, sir, an’ we won’t keep a busy gentleman from his business,” said the old woman, very politely. “joseph here have been gardener at the vicarage, man an’ bwoy, for twenty-five years—ever since theer was a garden at all. he helped to cut out the peat an’ make the place, as was just a new-take from dartymoor, though now ’tis so good stuff as ever growed a cabbage.”
“ess fay; all rotted manure an’ butivul loam, so sweet as sugar, an’ drains like a sieve,” declared joseph.
“i want a gardener, of course, and cannot do better than mr. hannaford, though i’m not sure if it isn’t too much for one elderly man.”
“it is!” almost shouted joseph. “never a bible prophet said a truer word! too much by half. not that i’d demean myself to ax for another man, but a bwoy i should have, an’ i hope your p. 269honour will give me a bwoy, if ’tis only to fetch an’ carry.”
“what wages did you get from mr. truman?”
“pound a week; an’ another shilling would be a godsend, if i may say it without offence.”
“an’ up to squire’s they only offered him seventeen an’ sixpence, with all his ripe experience,” said mrs. hannaford. “’twould be a fine lesson in christianity to squire, i’m sure, if you seed your way to twenty-one shilling.”
“better than a waggon-load of sermons, if i may say so,” continued joseph.
“a sight better, seeing squire’s not greatly ’dicted to church-gwaine, best of times,” chimed in mrs. hannaford.
“you’d be under-gardener there, no doubt?”
“ezacally so, dear sir. under-gardener beneath smallridge—a man three year younger than me. but ban’t for me to tell my parts. all the same, i wouldn’t work under smallridge, not for money, if i could help it. very rash views he’ve got ’bout broccoli, not to name roots an’ sparrowgrass.”
“terrible wilful touching fruit, also, they tells me,” added mrs. hannaford.
“well, you must come, i suppose. i could hardly turn you out of your old garden; nor is there any need to do so.”
“an’ thank you with all my heart, your p. 270honour; an’ you’ll never regret it so long as i be spared.”
“the extra shilling you shall have. as to a boy, i want a stable-boy, and he’ll be able to lend you a hand in the summer.”
mr. hannaford nodded, touched his forehead, and mentally arranged a full programme for the boy.
“enough said, then. on monday i shall expect you, and will walk round with you myself and say what i’ve got to say. good-bye for the present.”
mr. budd rose, and the old pair, with many expressions of satisfaction, were about to depart when their vicar spoke again.
“one more matter i may mention, though doubtless there is no necessity to do so with two such sensible people. there are more sects and conventicles here than i like to find in such a very small parish. of course you come to church every sunday, mr. hannaford?”
“as to that, your honour—” began joseph; then his wife silenced him.
“we’m plymouth brethren from conscience,” she said. “you ban’t gwaine to object, surely—you as have come here to preach charity an’ such like?”
mr. budd flushed.
“i’ve come to do my duty, ma’am, and don’t p. 271need to be told what that is by my parishioners, i hope. all servants of the vicarage will, as a matter of course, go to church twice every sunday, and upon week-days also, if i express any wish to that effect.”
“let ’em, then,” answered the old woman, fiercely. “you can bind ’em in chains of iron, if you will, an’ they’m feeble-hearted enough to let ’e. but us won’t. us be what we be, an’ plymouth brethren have got somethin’ better to do than go hunting foxes, whether or no. i’m a growed woman, an’ joseph’s my husband, an’ he shan’t be in bondage to no man. to squire’s garden he shall go, an’ save his sawl alive, so now then! gude evening, sir.”
“if i may have a tell—” began joseph, in a tremor of emotion; but his wife cut him short.
“you may not,” she cried sternly. “you come home. least said soonest mended. awnly i’m sorry to god as a cæsar of all the roosias have come to postbridge instead of a christian creature.”
so saying, she clutched joseph and led him away. but on their silent journey homeward mr. hannaford pondered this tremendous circumstance deeply. then, at his cottage gate, he rallied and spoke his mind.
“we’ve done wrong,” he said, “an’ i be gwaine back again to confess to it afore i sleep this night.”
p. 272“we’ve done right. you’ll save your sawl an’ take seventeen shilling an’ sixpence. you’ll be a martyr for conscience, an’ i be proud of ’e.”
“martyr or no martyr, i knaw a silly auld woman, an’ i ban’t proud of ’e at all, nor of myself neither. anything in reason i’d do for you, an’ have done ever since i took you; but being put to work in cold blood under smallridge is more’n i will do for you or for all the plymouth brothers that ever bleated hell-fire to a decent man. i won’t go under smallridge. he’d make me sweat enough to float a ship; an’ at my time of life ’twould shorten my days.”
“the lord’ll help ’e, joseph.”
“lord helps those who help theerselves.”
“you’m gwaine to the hall, however, for i’ve said it.”
“not me—never.”
“you be, joseph hannaford, as i’m a living woman.”
“no. not for nobody, jane! i’ve never crossed you in my life; i’ve knuckled under like a worm for forty-three year, an’ shall henceforward just the same; but wheer smallridge be in question i’m iron. i go to church next sunday.”
“you never shall!”
“i always shall—an’ glad to get back. ’twas a very silly thing to leave it.”
p. 273mrs. hannaford put her fowl-like nose within two inches of her husband’s.
“i dare you to do it.”
“ban’t no use flustering yourself, my old dear. every human man’s got one kick in him. an’ kick i’m gwaine to this instant moment.”
he turned and left her with great agility, while she—the foundations of her married life suddenly shaken by this earthquake—stood and stared and gasped up at heaven.
joseph quickly vanished into the dusk, and soon stood once more before the new vicar. mr. budd thereupon raised his eyes from his desk and asked a question without words.
“well, your honour, ’tis like this here: i’ll go back to church again very next sunday as falls in.”
“ah! but i thought that joseph would be in bondage to no man?”
“nor no woman neither,” said mr. hannaford.
p. 275a traveller’s tale
p. 277“he’m a monkey that hath seen the world, no doubt,” said merryweather chugg, the water-bailiff.
“yes—an’ brought back some nuts wi’ gold kernels, by all accounts,” answered noah sage; “though he ban’t going to crack none here, i reckon, for the chap’s only come to have a look at the home of his youth; then he’m off again to foreign parts.”
the two old men sat in the parlour of the “bellaford” inn at postbridge, and about them gathered other labouring folk. all were inhabitants of the dartmoor district, and most had been born and bred in the valley of east dart or upon adjacent farms. this village, of which the pride and glory is an old bridge that spans the river, shall be found upon the shaggy breast of the moor, like an oasis in the desert; for here much land has been snatched from the hungry heath, groves of beech and sycamore lie in the bosom of these undulating wastes, and close at hand are certain snug tenement farms whereon men have dwelt and wrestled with the wild land from time immemorial.
to-day a native had returned to his home; and as a vacant room at the “bellaford” inn well served p. 278his purpose, mr. robert bates secured it for a fortnight, that he might wander again about his boyhood’s haunts and shine a little in the eyes of those who still remembered him. that night he had promised to relate his experiences in the public bar; he had also let it be known that upon this great occasion beer and spirits would flow free of all cost for old friends and new.
“he’ll have to address a overflowed meeting, like a member of parliament,” said michael french, the moor-man, “for be blessed if us can all get in your bar, mrs. capern.”
“lots of room yet,” she said, “if you’d only turn some of they boys out-of-doors. they won’t drink nought, so i’d rather have their room than their company.”
“i should think you was oncommon excited to see this chap, ban’t you?” asked noah sage of a very ancient patriarch in the corner. “it was up to hartland farm, when you was head man there, that bob bates comed as a ’pretence from moreton poorhouse, if i can remember.”
“ess fay, ’tis so,” said the other. “you ax un if the thrashings i used to give un every other day for wasting his time weern’t the makin’ of un; an’ if he ban’t a liar, he’ll say ’twas so. if he owes thanks to any man, ’tis to old jacob pearn—though i say it myself.”
p. 279“that’s the truth, an’ i’ll allow every word of it, jacob; an’ i’m terrible glad you ban’t dead, for you were the first i meant to see come to-morrow.”
mr. bates himself spoke. he was a small, wiry man of fifty or thereabout. his clothes were well cut, and he wore a gold watch-chain. his face and hands were tanned a deep brown; his hair was grizzled, and his beard was also growing grey at the sides. his eyes shone genially as he grasped a dozen hands in turn, and in turn answered twice a dozen salutations.
robert bates had run away from the heavy hand of gaffer pearn some five and thirty years before the present time, and he looked round him now and saw but one familiar face; for the old men had passed from their labours, the middle-aged had taken their places, his former mates were growing grey and he could not recognise them.
“i’ll tell you the whole tale if you’m minded,” he said. “’tis thirty years long, but give two minutes to each of they years an’ i’ll finish in a hour. an’ meantime, mrs. capern—as was nancy bassett, an’ wouldn’t walk out sundays with me last time i seed ’e—be so good as to let every gen’leman present have what he wants to drink, for i be going to leave ten pounds in postbridge, an’ i’d so soon you had it as anybody.”
great applause greeted this liberal determination.
p. 280“you’m an open-handed chap, wherever you’ve comed from,” said merryweather chugg, “an’ us all drinks long life an’ good health to you an’ yours, if so be you’m a family man.”
“i’ll come to that,” answered mr. bates. “let me sit by the fire, will ’e? i do love the smell of the peat, an’ where i come from, us don’t trouble about fires, i assure ’e, for a body can catch heat from the sun all the year round.”
“you was always finger-cold in winter,” said mr. pearn. “i mind as a boy your colour never altered from blue in frosty weather, an’ you had a chilblain wheresoever a chilblain could find room for itself.”
“’tis so; an’ when i runned away to mend my fortune, ’twas the knowledge that a certain ship were sailing down to the line into hot weather as made me go for a sailor. to plymouth docks i went when i ran off, an’ there met a man at the barbican as axed me to come for cabin-boy; an’ when he said they was going where the cocoanuts comed from, i said i’d go.”
“my dear life!” murmured mrs. capern,—“to think what little things do make or mar a fortune!”
“’tis so;—a drop of rum cold, mother, then i’ll start on my tale. an’ i may as well say that every word be true, for providence have so dealt by me that to tell a falsehood is the last thing ever i would do.”
p. 281“not but what you used to lie something terrible when you was young, bob,” said mr. pearn, from the corner.
“i know it, jacob,” answered the traveller; “an’ hard though you hit, you never hit hard enough to cure me of lying. ’tis a damned vice, an’ i never yet told a fib as paid for telling. but ’twasn’t you cured me; ’twas a man by the name of mistley, the bo’sun of the ship i sailed in. i told un a stramming gert lie, an’ he found it out, an’—well, if you want to know what a proper dressing-down be, you ax a seafaring man to lay it on. in them days they didn’t reckon they’d begun till they’d drawed blood out of ’e; an’ so often as not they’d give ’e a bucket of salt water down your back arter, just so as you shouldn’t forget where they’d been busy. one such hiding i got from mistley, an’ never wanted another. i’d so soon have told that man a second lie as i’d told god one to his shining face. an’ long after, to show i don’t bear no malice, when i fell on my feet, i went down to the port when my old ship comed in again two years later, an’ in my pocket was five golden pounds for mistley. only he’d gone an’ died o’ yellow jack in the meantime down to the plate, so he never got it. an’ you boys there, remember what i say, an’ never tell no lies if you want to get on an’ pocket good wages come presently. ’tis more than thirty years ago, an’ the p. 282man that did it dust; yet i wriggles my shoulders an’ feels the flesh crawl on my spine to this day when i thinks of it.
“but i’m gwaine too fast, for i haven’t sailed from plymouth yet. us went off in due course, an’ i seed the wonders of the deep, an’ i can’t say i took to ’em; but there—i’d gone for a sailor, an’ a sailor i thought ’twould have to be. us got to a place by name of barbados in the west indies presently—bim for short. a flat pancake of an island, with not much to tell about ’cept that there’s only a bit of brown paper between it an’ a billet i hope none of us won’t never go to. hot as—as need be, no doubt; but there was better to come, for presently we ups anchor an’ away to st. vincent—a place as might make you think heaven couldn’t be better; an’ then down to grenada, another island so lovely as a fairy story; an’ then trinidad—where the angostura bitters comes from, mrs. capern—an’ then a bit of a place by name of tobago, as you could put down on dartymoor a’most an’ leave some to double up all round. yet, ’pon that island, neighbours, i’ve lived my life, an’ done my duty, i hope, an’ got well thought upon by black, white an’ brindled; for in them islands i should tell you the people be most every shade you could name but green. butter-coloured, treacle-coloured, putty-coloured, saffron-coloured, p. 283peat-coloured, an’ every colour; an’ sometimes, though a chap may have the face of a nigger—lips an’ nose an’ wool an’ all—yet he’ll be so white as a dog’s tooth; an’ you know there’s blood from europe hid in him somewheres. they’m a mongrel people; yet they’ve got souls—just as much as they irish-americans; an’ god he knows if they’ve got souls, there’s hope for everything—down to a scorpion. my own wife, as i’ve left out in tobago with my family—well, i wouldn’t go for to call her black; an’ for that matter i knocked a white man off the wharf to scarborough in tobago, who did say so; but you folks to home—i dare swear you’d think her was a thought nigger-like, owing to a touch of the tar-brush, as we call it, long ways back in her family history. but as good a woman—wife an’ mother—as ever feared god an’ washed linen. a laundress, neighbours—lower than me by her birth, so my master said; then i laughed in his face, an’ told un i was a workhouse boy as couldn’t name no father but god a’mighty. a nice little bungy, round-about woman, wi’ butivul black eyes, an’ so straight in her vartue as a princess. never a man had no better wife, an’ her’d have come to see old dartymoor along with me but for my family, as be large an’ all sizes.
“well, to tobago it was that, lending a hand to help lade a royal mail steam packet as p. 284comed in—just to make a shilling or two while we was idle, i got struck down. loading wi’ cocoanuts an’ turtle her was; an’ ’twould make you die o’ laughin’, souls, to have seen them reptiles hoisted aboard by their flippers. no laughing matter for them though, poor twoads, because, once they’m catched by moonlight ’pon the sandy beaches there, ’tis a very poor come-along-of-it for ’em. not a bit more food do they have, but just be shipped off home in turtle-troughs an’ make the best weather they can. us had a stormy journey back last fortnight, an’ i knowed by the turtle-soup o’ nights that the creatures were dying rapid an’ somebody had made a bad bargain. but if you gets the varmints home alive, they be worth a jew’s eye.
“suddenly, helping in a shore barge, i went down as if somebody had fetched me a clout ’pon top the head; an’, when i came to, there was doctor from shore an’ the dowl to pay. ’twas days afore i could get about, an’ my ship couldn’t wait, an’ no work for me nowhere ’cept odd jobs. then they told me i was a d.b.s., which means a distressed british seaman, an’ i found as i’d have to wait for next steamer that comed to ship me off. but i weren’t very down-daunted ’bout it, for, since i’d seen the size of the earth, i’d growed bigger in the mind a bit, an’ i ate my food an’ smoked my pipe an’ thanked god that i was alive to try again.
p. 285“then, trapesing about one afternoon, footsore like and tired of trying to get something to do on the sugar estates, i climbed over a wall into a bit of shade, an’ sat me down under some cocoa trees to rest. i confess i did get over a wall, which is a thing you can’t often do without making trouble except on old dartymoor. an’ there i was with the mountains around—all covered to their topmost spurs wi’ wonnerful forest, and the caribbean sea stretched blue as blue underneath. such a jungle of trees an’ palms laced together with flowering vines as you’ve never dreamed of. trumpet flowers, an’ fire-red flamboyants, an’ huge cactuses, an’ here an’ there a lightning-blasted, gert tree towering stark white above all the living green. an’ king-birds an’ humming-birds twinkling about in the air like women’s rings an’ brooches, an’ lizards so big as squirrels a-scampering upon the ground, an’ tree-frogs in the trees, an’ fireflies spangling the velvet-black nights. an’ no dimpsy light, neither at dawn nor even, for the moment sun be down ’tis night, an’ moment he be up again ’tis morning. you can see un climb straight out o’ the sea as if he was rolling up a ladder.
“i sat there in the shade, an’ at my very hand what should i find but a ripe pomegranate? ’tis a fruit as you folks haven’t met with outside the bible, i reckon, yet a real thing, an’ very nice to p. 286them as like it. packed tight wi’ seeds, the colour of the heather, wi’ a bitter-sweet taste to it as be very refreshing to the throat. such a fruit i picked without ‘by your leave,’ an’ chewed at un, an’ looked at the butivul blue sea down-under, an’ talked to myself out loud, as my manner always was.
“‘well, bob bates,’ i sez, ‘you be most tired o’ caddling about doing nought, ban’t you? still, you’m a lucky chap, whether or no; for a live d.b.s. be a sight better’n a dead cabin-boy. ’twill larn ’e to treat the sun less civil. don’t do for to cap to him in these parts. but you keep up your heart an’ trust in the lord, as mistley told ’e. he’ll look to ’e for sartain in his own time.’
“then i heard a curious ristling alongside in the bush, an’ catched sight of a pair o’ cat-like eyes on me. ’course i knowed there wasn’t no savage beasts there, but i didn’t know as there mightn’t be savage men, an’ i was going to get back over thicky wall an’ run for it. but too late. they was human eyes, wi’ a human nose atop an’ a human moustache under, but a very comical fashion of face an’ a queerer than ever i’d seen afore or have since.
“’tis hard for me to call home exactly what matthew damian looked like then, for ’tis above thirty year ago, an’ that man filled my eye every day, winter an’ summer, for twenty years. yet, though he looks different now, with all i know behind my p. 287mind’s eye as i see him, then he ’peared mighty strange, wild an’ shaggy. a face like a round shot he had, but a terrible deep jaw under the ear. a little chin, round eyes—grey-green—an’ ears standing sharp off a close-cropped head, wi’ hair pepper-an’-salt colour. a huge, tall man, an’ his beard was cut to his chin, an’ his moustache stuck out like a bush five inches to port an’ starboard. well, i was mortal feared, for i’d never seen nothing like un outside a nightmare; yet his voice was so thin as a boy’s, an’ piped like a reed in his thick throat. he had the nigger whine, too—as i dare say you may mark on my tongue now, after my ears have soaked in it so long.
“he stared an’ i stared. then he spoke. ‘you come along with me,’ he said in a frenchy sort of english.
“‘why for?’ i said; then i thought i seed his eyes ’pon the pomegranate. ‘very sorry, sir, if this here be yours,’ i said; ‘but i’m baggered if a chap can tell what be wild an’ what ban’t on this here ridicklous island. ’tis like a gentleman’s hothouse broke loose,’ i said to un.
“‘no matter about that,’ he said.
“‘i can give ’e my knife,’ i told un, ‘if you must have payment; but that be all i’ve got in the world ’cept the things i stand up in, an’ i’d a deal rather keep it.’
p. 288“‘i do not want your knife,’ he answers. ‘i want you.’
“‘well, i’m going cheap, i do assure ’e,’ i said, thinking i’d try how a light heart would serve me. but i weren’t comfortable by a long way, ’cause there’s a lot of madness in them islands, an’ i thought as this chap might be three-halfpence short of a shilling, as we say. however, he was too busy thinking to laugh at my poor fun, an’ for that matter, as i found after, he never laughed easy,—nor talked easy for that matter. now he fell silent, an’ i walked by him. then, after a stretch through a reg’lar garden of eden, wi’out our first parents, us comed upon a lovely house, whitewashed home to the roof—like snow in all that butivul green. ’pon sight of it the man spoke again.
“‘i want you to talk to my mother,’ he said suddenly. ‘you’ll just talk and talk in an easy way, as you was talking to yourself when i found you.’
“‘i be only a sailor-man, wi’ nought to say to a lady,’ i told him.
“‘no matter for that,’ he said. ‘just talk straight on. it do not signify a bit what you say, so you speak natural. in fact, talk to my mother as if madame was your own mother.’
“so then, of course, i reckoned the cat-faced chap was out of his mind—as who wouldn’t have?
“to a great verandah we comed, all crawled over p. 289with the butivulest white flowers the sun draws the scent from; an’ there, in a cane chair, sat an ancient lady—lady, i say, though you might have reckoned she was an old brown lizard by the look of her. old ban’t the word for her. time’s self would have looked a boy alongside her, if the picture-books be true. a great sunbonnet was over her head, an’ a frill under, an’ just a scanty thread or two of white hair peeping from that. a face all deep lines where the years had run over it; bright eyes peeping from behind great gold spectacles, an’ hands—my word! like joints of an old apple tree. her was that homely too! a dandy-go-risset gown her wore, an’ a bit of knitting was in her hands, an’ a good book, wi’ very large print, ’pon a table beside her, an’ a li’l nigger gal waved a fan to keep the flies away.
“i took my hat off an’ made a leg; then her son spoke: ‘sit down there beside her and talk loud, and pretend with yourself that madame damian is your grandmother. don’t try to use fine words; and remember this: if you do rightly as i bid you, you shall never repent this day as long as you live.’
“i was all in a maze, i do assure ’e; but i just reckoned obedience was best, an’ went at her with one eye on my gentleman, for fear as he should change his mind.
“‘well, my old dear,’ i said, ‘i be very pleased to meet ’e, an’ i do like to have a tell with ’e very p. 290much, if you’ll pardon a rough sailor-man. an’ i hopes you’ll put in a word with this here big gen’leman for me, ’cause i’ve eat one of his pomegranates unbeknownst-like, though i’m shot if i’d have touched un come i’d known ’twasn’t wild. an’ to tell ’e gospel, i be in a jakes of a mess as ’tis—far from my home an’ not a friend in the world that i know of.’
“dallybuttons! to see that ancient woman! when i beginned to talk, her dropped her knitting, as if there was a spider in it, an’ sat up an’ stared out of her bead-black eyes. though ’twas a fiery day, i went so cold as a frog all down my spine to see her glaze so keen.
“‘go on,’ she said in a funny old voice, ‘go on, young man, will ’e? tell about where you comed from, please.’
“there! it did sound mighty familiar to hear her, an’ no mistake!
“‘my heart! you’m west country too!’ i cried out.
“her nodded, but her couldn’t speak another word.
“‘go on, go on talking to her,’ the man said.
“so i sailed on.
“‘you must know i runned off to sea, ma’am, from a farm down dartymoor way. ’tis a terrible coorious sort of a place, an’ calls for hard work if p. 291you wants to thrive there. roots will do if you’m generous with stable stuff an’ lime, but corn be cruel shy, except oats. i was a lazy boy, i’m afraid, an’ got weary of being hit about like a foot-ball, though i deserved it; an’ i thought to mend my life by running away. the things i’ve seed! lor’-amercy! ’tis a wonnerful world, sure enough, ma’am.’
“‘so it be,’ she said, very soft, ‘an’ a wonnerful god made it, my dear. go on, go on about the dartymoors, will ’e?’
“‘well,’ i said, ‘’tis a gert, lonesome land, all broke up wi’ rocky tors, as we call ’em, an’ clitters o’ granite where the foxes breed, an’ gashly bogs, in which you’m like to be stogged if you don’t know no better. an’ the cots be scattered over the face of it, an’ the little farms do lie here an’ there in the lew corners, wi’ their new-take fields around about. there’s a smell o’ peat in the air most times, an’ it do rise up very blue into the morning light. an’ the great marshes glimmer, an’ the plovers call in spring; an’ the ponies, wi’ their little ragged foals, go galloping unshod over the moor. then the rivers an’ rills twinkle every way, like silver an’ gold threads stretching miles an’ miles; an’ come summer the heather blows an’ the great hills shine out rosylike an’ butivul; an’—oh, my old dear—oh, ma’am—’ i says, breaking off, ‘doan’t ’e—doan’t ’e sob p. 292so—doan’t ’e take on like that, for i wouldn’t bring a wisht thought to ’e for money.’
“this i said ’cause the old ancient’s lips shook, an’ her bright eyes fell a-blinking, an’ great tears rolled down. then she put her hands over her face an’ bowed over ’em.
“‘my god!’ said the chap, half to hisself, ‘this is the first time my mother have wept to my sight; an’ i am sixty years old!’
“but of course a devonshire woman wouldn’t cry afore a frenchman, even if he was her son.
“come presently she cheered up. ‘do ’e knaw a place by the name of postbridge, my boy?’ she says.
“‘i did ought to, ma’am,’ i sez; ‘’twas from hartland farm i runned.’
“she sighed a gert sigh. ‘hartland!’ she says, as if the word was a whole hymn tune to her.
“‘there’s a church, an’ a public, there now,’ i said.
“‘an’ the gert men of renown? parson mason, an’ mr. slack, an’ judge buller, an’ sir thomas tyrwhitt?’ she axed me.
“‘never heard tell of none of them,’ i said.
“‘course not,’ old lady answers. ‘why—why, i forgot i be ninety-four. they heroes was all dead afore your faither an’ mother were born.’
“‘as to them,’ i tells her—‘as to my faither an’ p. 293mother, ma’am, there’s a manner of grave doubt, for i’m a workhouse boy, wi’out any havage that be known.’
“but her had fallen to dreaming.
“‘tell about the in-country,’ she said all of a sudden. ‘my mother comed from down totnes way.’
“so i tells about the south hams, an’ the farms, an’ the butivul apple-blooth, as creams out over the orchards in spring, an’ all the rest of it.
“there, i talked myself dry an’ no mistake; an’ she nodded an’ nodded an’ laughed once; an’ it set her off coughing, an’ ’frighted her son terrible.
“then, after i’d been chittering for a month of sundays, as it seemed to me, the day ended and it comed on dark, an’ she got up to go.
“‘keep un here,’ she says to the man. ‘for god’s love doan’t ’e let un go. pay un anything he axes for to stop.’
“she went off very slow, wi’ a nigger to support her at each elbow, an’ a fine young brown woman to look after her. an’ i was took in the kitchen, an’ had such a bellyful of meat an’ drink as minded me of christmas up to hartland farm in the old days.
“then the chap—he lets me into the riddle of it all. you see his mother was farmer blake’s darter—the first as ever saved land in these parts, an’ rented from the duchy more’n a hundred years p. 294agone now. an’ when princetown was made for a prison to hold the french us catched in the wars, there comed a monseer damian among the prisoners. him an’ many other gents the authorities let out on parole, as they say; an’ he made friends with farmer blake, an’ falled in love with margery blake. an’ when war was done, if he didn’t marry her all correct an’ snatch her away to foreign parts! martinique was left to the french, an’ he took her to that island first, then to trinidad, which be ours, then to tobago, which be also ours. there the man prospered, an’ growed sugar, an’ did very flourishing, an’ comed to be first an’ richest party in the island. but smallpox took him in middle life, an’ it took all his children but his eldest son, matthew damian. he bided with his mother, an’ married a french woman from guadeloupe.
“an’ ’twas old lady’s hope an’ prayer for seventy year to hear good devon spoke again some day. her only got to hunger terrible for the old country when her childer an’ her husband died, by which time she was too old to travel home again. an’ the postbridge blakes had all gone dead ages afore; an’ in truth there couldn’t have been a soul on dartymoor as remembered her. of course her son knowed the sound of the speech, from hearing his mother, as never lost it; an’ when he catched me telling to myself, his first thought was for her.
p. 295“’twas meat an’ drink to her, sure enough; an’ meat an’ drink to me too, for that matter, because i never left the man-o’-war bay sugar estate no more. very little work i done at first, for old mrs. damian would have me keep on ’bout home every afternoon in the verandah; but six months after i comed there she died, happy as a bird; an’ if i wasn’t down for fifty pound in her will!
“richest people in tobago, they was; an’ then i settled to work for matthew damian, an’ when he died, seventeen year after, the head man was pensioned off, an’ i got the billet under matthew damian’s son, who be my master now. an’ there i’ll work to the end, an’ my childern after me, please the lord.”
“’tis a very fine tale, mr. bates, if i may speak for the company,” said merryweather chugg; “an’ it do show what a blessing it be to come out of devonshire. if you’d been a foreigner, now, none of these good things would have happened to ’e.”
“i mind my faither telling about farmer blake an’ how he helped to carry his coffin to widecombe soon after i was born,” said gaffer pearn.
“for my part,” declared the landlady, “my mind be all ’pon that poor old blid, as went away from these parts in her maiden days. to think, after seventy years of waiting, that she should hear a p. 296devonshire tongue again! i lay it helped her to pass in peace.”
“it did so,” declared the returned native. “she went out of life easy as a babby; for her appeared to see all her own folks very clear just afore she died, an’ she was steadfast sure as there’d be a west-country welcome waitin’ up-along. fill your glasses, my dears; an’ give they boys some ginger-beer, ma’am, will ’e?”
